


Golden

by Dibleopard



Category: Sanders Sides, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Gen, I have no idea what I'm going to do with this but fluff probably won't happen, Mute Virgil, Mute!Virgil, Self-Hatred, at least not romantic fluff or whatever, friends though, im honestly so confused as to how this website works
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2019-02-18 12:39:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13100307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dibleopard/pseuds/Dibleopard
Summary: The others had never heard Virgil speak. They were convinced that he couldn’t. He could cope with that. But the truth was that he was entirely able to speak, always had been, and his unspoken lies were eating him up inside.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have never used this site before so here goes. This fic got good reception on Tumblr so I hope you guys enjoy it.

Anxiety stared himself in the eye, a reflection framed by misted mirror. He tried to put on a mask of serious indifference _-uncaring distrust they hate you-_ but ended up turning away and shakily scrubbing his face with his hands. He couldn’t do this, _-pathetic useless unwanted-_ it was too risky, this thing he kept was all he had; who knew what could happen? No. Now was not the time, he needed to do this, needed to try. Gripping the sink, he took a few collecting breaths and opened his mouth-  
Nothing came out. His voice caught on the first _-stupid-_ syllable. Why was he scared? He was safe; the door into his bedroom was locked, the door into the hallway was locked, no one could get in. _-Unless they sank in-_ No, they never had before, why would they now? Hypotheticals would get him nowhere.  
Pushing off the sink, he paced around the bathroom, angry that he couldn’t bring himself to do something so simple, angry that he was here, rehearsing such a simple thing when everyone else did it without thought. After a minute of restless, untargeted rage, he launched himself at the sink, gripping it with white knuckles and ignoring the snarling, scared face in front of him. Five seconds. Five seconds to collect himself. Now. Breathe in.  
“I.”  
His voice was low and gravelly from disuse.  
“Am.”  
He was tense with held breath.  
“Virgil.”  
Like a gust of wind, the air flew out of him and he all but collapsed into the basin. That wasn’t so bad. Was it? Oh God, it was awful. Pitiful. But maybe it was enough. He had researched his name countless times, searching for reassurance or validation or _meaning_. Virgil: like vigilant, alert, watching, guarding, protecting; not a villain. A necessary evil, maybe, but not a villain. Virgil: like Dante’s rescuer and guide through Hell and Purgatory. Maybe not even a necessary evil — maybe just a helper doing his best. _-Virgil: like the creep on the stairs who can’t speak-_ Yes, it would be enough. A name that spoke the volumes he couldn’t.  
_-If they care enough to look it up-_ His heart sunk painfully at the thought of their apathy, their rejection, their - oh God what was he doing - anger. They could get angry; he hadn’t thought about that. Angry that he had kept silent for so long, being a constant radiator of negative emotion, and now he had decided to speak up because he had been able to all along and he was a _liar_.  
A small sob escaped his mouth as he slumped onto the cold bathroom tiles. _-Why risk it? You’re safe like this; your silence is all you have. Don’t ruin it. It’s not worth it. You’ll put in all this effort for **nothing** -_ Virgil choked on the noise he couldn’t bring himself to make and curled up on the floor, hands covering his neck, head between his knees. _-They don’t care. They won’t care. They hate you, you know it, they hate you, always hate you hate you hate y-_  
But he had to try. He owed them that mu- Well, he didn’t owe them, technically. Scorn, ignorance and fear didn’t earn people’s voices. The fact of the matter was that he _wanted_ to try, in a painful, twisted way. A tiny little part of him was yearning for their acceptance, maybe even their approval of him. It was a dangerous glitter of hope that he had tried to dull with realism and fear, but to no avail. Now it was pushing him to speak, who knows what good things will come if you just have enough courage to speak.  
_-Who knows what bad things could happen? I do. Death — maybe worse: humiliation, hatred, anger. What’s that thing Logan’s always going on about? The butterfly effect, millions of lives destroyed by the flap of a butterfly’s wings-_  
Ignoring his thoughts to the best of his ability, Virgil resolved to stay on the floor for the night, and leave the weight of speech for the morning.


	2. Chapter 2

Virgil was shivering when he woke up, whether it was due to nerves or spending a night on cold tile, he didn’t know. Pushing himself up dizzily, he decided on a deadline: he had to have started speaking by noon. There were no consequences if he didn’t, but Anxiety found it easier to push himself into action if there was a deadline to adhere to. He had a decent amount of time to prepare and get everyone’s attention, and then he would do it; he would tell them his name and hope that it pulled through for him. Taking a deep breath, he mentally started the countdown.

Two hours later, he was lying face down on the bed, questioning his existence and wondering if he were better off hiding in his room all day. There was so much to gain from speaking, but also so much to lose. It was bad enough as it was, why take the risk? What was he thinking, he was an idiot, he-  
Oh. Oh no. That wasn’t good. A faint tug was pulling him into reality, _physical reality_. Nope, not good at all. That never happened. Not unless Thomas and the others tried to get something out of hi- Gah. Bad news, bad news, bad news- He tried to resist but to no avail, eventually giving in and throwing that extra bit of effort in to appear as jarringly as possible.  
They screamed. Said a lot, really. He glared at them each in turn.  
“Hey! Anxiety, you’re here. Great,” Virgil couldn’t help but notice the flat sarcasm in Thomas’ voice. It was to be expected, but it still stung. His unnerving ability to _radiate_ emotion had made his part in the equation perfectly clear to the others - Anxiety, a downer to rain on everyone’s parade - as well as the fact that he would really much rather not be in front of them right now. Thomas shivered.  
“Cease, Anxiety, there is no need for that,” Virgil couldn’t help but notice Roman make a not-so-subtle move for his sword, “We were simply asking a favour of you.”  
“Come on, kidd-” Patton stopped himself before he could finish the term of endearment, “Kid. At least hear Roman out.”  
Virgil glared at Roman, who took it as an invitation to continue.  
“Okay. So, you know how Thomas has started uploading videos featuring me, Logan and Patton?” Of course he had. Of course he knew about the series they had left him out of for reasons never explained. He had spent days agonising over it, wondering if he would ever be one of them. “Well, I was thinking that, in order to properly give the series a story arc, we need an antagonist and you would be perfect for the part!”  
Oh no. Ohh no. Why? Why now, when he was so close? _So damn close. -See? They’ll only ever see you as the villain. It’s useless-_  
“I mean, you’ve certainly got the presence for it. And you’ve got the look… down, I suppose.”  
Virgil was sure that his anguished fear and frustration would cut through the air with the clarity of broken glass but all that the others managed to pick up was writhing unease.  
“You don’t even need to do anything!” continued Roman, in an obvious - and failed - attempt to appease him, “We’ll sort out the script and all of the set-up and you can just… do your thing. No lines to learn; even you can’t mess this up!”  
 _Even you can’t mess this up._ Anxiety resisted the urge to curl up into a ball and hide behind his knees, instead locking himself into tense stillness - head bowed, eyes screwed shut. A five second countdown. Look up. The others were watching with bated breath.  
He hated this. _-See? See how little they think of you? And the worst part: they’re **right** -_ Why couldn’t he speak up? Why couldn’t he prove himself to be more than a villain, more than an inexplicable feeling of apprehension? All he needed was one word. His chance to take an active role in his own life was lying within reach. A single syllable: _no_. Hesitantly, he took a breath in preparation for that one, liberating word-  
No. He couldn’t do it, he couldn’t. Shakily, he let the breath go and made a gesture to his audience as if to say, “I don’t care, do whatever,” before sinking out.  
It couldn’t be further from the truth.


	3. Chapter 3

Virgil watched his clock absently. It’s red light had burned onto his retina. 11:58, it informed him, placidly. He had half a mind to hit it, but that plan went about as far as his plan to talk to the others, i.e. not very far at all. _-Failure-_ After returning to his room, Anxiety had flopped onto his bed and wallowed in a desolate landscape of hopelessness for a while, eventually taking up a new hobby: glaring at every timekeeping device in sight as if it were personally attacking him by telling him how close to noon it was. Every minute was a minute he could have told them his name; every second was a second he could have taken to say ‘no’ to their plans, but the resolve brought by his arbitrary deadline was crushed by his own despondency.  
11:59. Realistically, he could go downstairs and show them who he really was. Realistically, he no longer had the desire to.  
 _Even you can’t mess this up._ Their words had stung more than they should have, and their venom was still rushing around his system, clouding his thoughts with the undeniable certainty that he was hated. _-Not hated, that suggests they care enough to hate you. No, you aren’t worth that effort; they simply don’t care about you-_  
12:00. Something inside him slipped. It plummeted with that unpleasant falling feeling and then shattered into a million shining pieces. Shrapnel tore up whatever it was that was now bleeding a deep-set sadness, a dark tar that stuck in his throat and weighed down his limbs.   
_-Honestly, who can blame them-_

(---)

_Knock knock._  
“Anxiety?”  
Virgil opened his eyes blearily.  
“We’re gonna need you in Thomas’s apartment now. For the video?” Patton paused like he was waiting for a reply. Virgil panicked for a second, wondering how to make it known that he had heard Morality. He scrabbled around for something to use.  
“So, uh… just be down in five minutes, okay?”  
Virgil’s fingers found a tennis ball on his bedside table and threw it at the door. It made a dull _thunk_ which thankfully didn’t sound too aggressive. Patton seemed to get the message.  
“Alright, see you then,” He called, sounding surprised at the response. Hesitant.  
Anxiety listened as footsteps receded down the corridor and then got out of bed. He dreaded what was to come. Picking up the ball, he launched it at a wall in frustration and let it roll to a stop under his bed. He felt a bit better. Breathing heavily, he trudged into his bathroom to sort out his eyeshadow.

(---)

The others yelped when he flicked into reality. He got the distinct impression that they had been talking about him - complaining, no doubt.  
“Took your time,” muttered Roman. Virgil knew that he had taken the full five minutes Patton had offered. Really, he had only needed three, but he kept them waiting out of spite.  
“Alright, let’s get started.”  
A script was thrown in Anxiety’s direction. He read it over, the part of him that had shattered mere hours ago seemed to have reassembled only to find a new hole to fall down. He could only blame himself for digging it. These words must have come from somewhere. A reflection was a reflection and no matter how distorted the image, it could only show what was already there. Was this who he was? A glaring problem to be rid of? He hoped not, but the evidence was lying in his hands and now he had to play along.  
The filming came and went in a sharp blur. None of the others seemed to properly decipher the waves of negativity coming from Anxiety, brushing off the heavy air and delivering lines as if he wasn’t there to hear them. Patton was the only one who looked at him without the script requiring it, as if he could tell that Virgil’s unhappiness contained something more than usual, but couldn’t figure out what. His glances were worried, probably more for Thomas than Virgil. Scratch that, definitely more for Thomas. The attention only made Anxiety writhe with discomfort.  
After what seemed like eons had passed, it was over, and Virgil left without so much as a second glance, prepared to suffer a sleepless night in fear of how the video would portray him. A villain. An illness. Someone not worth knowing. _-Won’t it be accurate?-_ His bed was a mess as he lay there, surrounded by darkness with the red light of the clock shining onto him, as if agreeing with the world that he was a demon. 


	4. Chapter 4

Virgil rarely moved in his sleep, a trait forced by subconscious caution, which is how he knew it had been a bad night. He jolted into consciousness half off the bed, lost balance and sent himself tumbling onto the floor. Groaning, he resigned himself to his fate and gazed distractedly at the usually ominous space beneath his bed. The realm of shadows and demons had been invaded by the luminous tennis ball, which sat there innocently. Steeling himself, he inched an arm under the bed to grab it. He was pleasantly surprised to find his arm intact and the retrieval successful. The ball was out of place in his room, a luminous star in a pitch black void.

Leaning back against the bed, Virgil played thoughtlessly with it and stared at his darkened window. He should probably stay in his room; seeing the results of the video would only make him feel worse, with more roads of doubt to follow. Letting the ball roll back under the bed to rule a kingdom of darkness, he checked his drawers. No food. The wrappers of granola bars and chocolate were still lying scattered around the bin after failed attempts to throw them in. His last food restock had been months ago. Looked like he’d have to take a preparatory trip to the kitchen before making his room a permanent residence.

Wobbling slightly, he got up and looked at the clock, blinking the light-headedness away. 4:00 am. Usually not even he was up and about at this hour; the kitchen would almost certainly be safe. He picked his way across the room and headed down the long corridor that lead to the stairs. His room had always been the furthest from the commons and he couldn’t help but think it might have been intentional. As he reached the stairs, he saw the glow of lights from downstairs. Someone must have forgotten to turn them off. Virgil couldn’t say he minded; he quite enjoyed being able to see.

Lulled by the light, he almost yelped when he rounded the corner to the kitchen. Shocked into stillness, he gaped at Patton, who never stayed up this late or woke up this early. He was sitting against the cupboards, face bathed in the yellow light of the oven, watching as a batch of something baked. He was more subdued than usual, perhaps sad. _-wrong-_ Virgil’s heart suddenly became dense and leaden with melancholy, weighing him down and refusing to let him leave. His stomach agreed, but for an entirely different reason: he couldn’t let himself be scared away from his one chance to stock up.

So he stood, a deer in the headlights, uncomfortable with intruding on something so raw it was bleeding all over him, choking his already-stuck throat, hoping with all of the heart he so painfully knew he had that Patton would notice him. As seconds ticked by in moments of millenia, Virgil’s willpower fractured under the weight of stolen silence and he clicked his fingers. Morality looked up, no hint of the usual smile on his face, unless the feeble attempt at something on his lips counted, which Virgil knew it didn’t.

“Oh. Hey, Anxiety, I was just thinking about you.” _-Did you expect anything less?-_ Virgil simply watched him, trying not to overthink it all in a whirlpool of nerves. “Nothing bad!” Patton’s attempts at reassurance did little to calm the ocean that was turning in Virgil’s ribcage. “It’s just… The video. Are you okay with it? Because thinking about it… it didn’t seem _right_.”

No, Virgil wasn’t okay with the video, but this felt so much worse. Morality had a look about him that was _wrong_. It didn’t belong to him. Patton was happy and bouncy and blissfully ignorant. No matter how many times he had hurt Virgil, it had never been malicious or purposeful. He had always been the one side Virgil came close to liking, with his feelings and his trying his best. Patton wasn’t this dejected, conflicted person that was sitting by an oven of undoubtedly stress-baked cookies. _-Look what you’ve done-_ This was his fault; Virgil had done this. It didn’t matter if he didn’t know how, he was the only one capable of breaking someone so… Patton.

Hesitantly, Virgil approached, wary of rejection. When Patton didn’t voice any opposition, he sat down opposite and leant against the cupboards too. The least he could do was keep the other company. _-He doesn’t want your company, why would he? You broke him. Leave before you make it worse-_ Patton’s small smile banished Anxiety’s doubts immediately.

“It gets lonely at this time. I don’t know what it is but… it’s sad.”

That was one of the reasons Virgil liked the hours of darkness: the subtle melancholy was almost cathartic. And he was alone.

“Usually I’m asleep by now, but it just felt wrong, you know? Something about that video was off. I’ve only just placed it,” he looked at Virgil, his new seriousness seeming to belong on his face, “You were off as well.”

Anxiety winced.

“No, not- That thing you do, where you make everyone really anxious? It felt off this time. You’re doing it now, too, but it feels sad. It was kinda sad before, but it was so mixed up with all the other things that I couldn’t place it. You were sad. Sad and angry and hurt.”

Silence. No-one had described his feelings before, not in a way that made them sound so… normal. So human. Mortal.

“You didn’t like the script.”

Virgil shook his head. That was an understatement. He hated the script. He _hated_ it but he felt like he wasn’t allowed to. It felt forbidden to hate it because he hadn’t offered anything to them to make it better. He had stood back had let them write what they saw. And what they saw was to be hated. It was a cruel parody that somehow gave a more accurate reflection of life than what he did.

“I’m sorry”

He looked up sharply. No. Patton shouldn’t be sorry, it wasn’t his fault. Virgil should be the sorry one. Virgil was the monster. Virgil was everyone’s problems incarnate.

Patton didn’t see his look as the oven beeped and he reached for the oven gloves. A blast of hot air and the tray was left to cool on the side. As Morality sat down, he grimaced sadly at Anxiety.

“It’s my job to know what’s right. I know that and I do try. But the more I think about it, the more I think I’ve been going about all of this all wrong.”

It pained Virgil to see Patton like this. He looked so vulnerable. What would cause him to open up to a monster like Virgil? Why would he feel guilty about lines a demon never spoke? Why was he talking to the literal embodiment of anxiety and not somebody- _anybody_ else? The sadistic twist of anxiousness joined hunger in his stomach. This entire situation was foreign. No one had ever trusted him with their emotions like this; the painful rawness was something he had never even thought possible. Hell, he had never expected anyone to put up with his presence unless under sufferance. What was he meant to do with such a heartfelt moment so out of the blue? He’d break it, certainly. The air carried fragility, one wrong move and it would shatter. God, how he knew what shattering felt like.

Patton shifted, yanking Virgil back to the dark kitchen with a start.

“Can we start again? And then I can get to know you. Properly, this time,” he had a nervous sort of earnest in his eyes, “No assumptions, no fear, just the two of us trying to work it out.”

He took a deep breath and offered his hand. “Hi, I’m Patton, but everyone calls me dad!”

Virgil was hesitant. Touch felt blasphemous, a heathen touching a god of purity, but when that god was willing to look past his flaws and mistakes and _silence_ to give him a fresh start, who was he to argue?

Reaching out to shake the offered hand, he was immediately rewarded with the first honest smile he had seen from Patton all morning. As he met Virgil’s hand with almost painfully perfect warmth, Patton regained some of his usual sprightliness.

“Well, isn’t this just great? Oh! And you can have the first cookie, I think we’ve both earned a couple,” still grinning, he moved the cookies onto a plate and offered it to Virgil, who took one warily. Morality wasn’t the type to have ulterior motives but this was all so _sudden_ that Anxiety didn’t quite know what to make of it, hesitance slowing his arms to a near-standstill.

With practised obliviousness, the sole communicator of the conversation bit into his own cookie, obviously enjoying it. Encouraged, Virgil took a small bite and was taken over in a rush of a million feelings that could only be described as _warm_. It was alien. Cold, he knew well: the numb isolation of a room forever locked in a vacuum akin to starless space. The heat of venomous words had scalded his veins too often to be forgotten. But _warm_? That was something too pleasant to be imagined as the midway point between two separate hells. Angelic purple between ice blue and scalding red. He suspected this is what hugs felt like, the comforting sweetness of _there_.

Thereness: A fantasy too perfect not to hurt.

Patton was watching him with a small smile on his face. “I hope you don’t mind me saying, but I’ve never really seen you like this. You always seemed so scary. I- I think it was the way you could make us all feel that fear, like it’s in the air, and we- we didn’t stop to think you felt it too. I should have tried sooner, I-” He stopped and collected himself. “Sorry. You don’t even speak but I think this is more who you are than what we usually see.”

Virgil thought this was more the real Patton than what he always saw, too. It made sense that the side whose emotions ran the deepest was also the most profound. Smiles could be deceptive; sadness was just as real as happiness. Why had he never seen that before? A horrible, small feeling twisted in his throat when it occurred to him that the others had probably seen it aeons ago. They were infinitely closer to the side he was stealing a mere few minutes from; surely they would be rewarded with this authenticity. The three of them had their spats, of course, but Virgil rarely saw them behind the scenes. They would be there for one another. He could see Princey slay Patton’s sadness with a million and one perfect words. He could see Logan tying him down like an anchor unwilling to let the good ship Morality drift away in a sea of tears. He could see warmth being normal. _There_ would not be an abstract concept for them; it would be reality. A fantastic version of life somehow real enough to call home.

So why share it with him?

He couldn’t speak, for goodness’ sake, he was a voiceless freak, an emotional poltergeist with clumsy feelings that clattered about any room he entered.

Patton spoke again, his usually sunny tone returned, burning through Virgil’s foggy panic, “This was… nice. It was nice. All that stuff was really weighing me down, you know? I feel much better now. Thanks. I’m off to bed now, feel free to grab more cookies,” he lowered his voice to a conspiratorial stage-whisper, “I won’t tell anyone.”

Grinning, he climbed to his feet and walked to the door. He was halfway across the room when Virgil panicked. Why did Patton thank _him_? It needed to be the other way around, Anxiety was the one in debt. On the spur of the moment, he clicked his fingers. Patton turned, questioningly and Virgil gave him a shaky salute, immediately staring at the floor in the hopes that he hadn’t messed up. Morality smiled and saluted back.

As sunshine and footsteps faded, Virgil was left feeling slightly empty in a room that seemed incrementally darker. His mind traced the exchange with hesitance as if it were too delicate to put a price on. Looking at past interactions, Patton had never been as hostile to the others, more fearfully intimidated than anything. Perhaps filming that cursed video had been a revelation for him. It had certainly been eating at him for a while, long enough to make cookies, a go-to stress-bake.

He wasn’t bad, Patton, perhaps a bit enthusiastic or easy to mislead, but not bad. He was brave too, it couldn’t be easy being the bearer of emotions and have someone force their own fear onto you. And to look past it and give the intruder a chance to be something else for twenty minutes? That would be beyond Virgil’s comprehension normally, but here he was, in a kitchen he had previously shared with Morality himself.

He dared not dream of being accepted by him, but something was quietly piecing itself back together from glittering shards and his tar-stuck limbs felt a little bit lighter.

He stood up. Considering the plate of cookies, he reached a hand out- and diverted it to push the plate away from the counter’s edge. Taking one felt like theft, it would be criminal to take something so kind and warm with no-one else there. He already felt evil enough as he grabbed a box of granola bars and a glass before leaving for his room. _-Ungrateful-_


End file.
